


Just Do It

by HiddenEye



Series: This, my dear, is love [4]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: 70s Timeline, Adam Has a Breakdown and Grows a Beard, And Grows Out His Hair, Bearded Adam, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27023797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenEye/pseuds/HiddenEye
Summary: “You two need to sleep together. It’ll take the edge off, I promise.”“I’m not using your one night stands as a solution,” Adam hisses out, gripping his forearms tightly. “Keep that to yourself.”“You’d be surprised at what a little sex can do to you,” Mason hums. “When’s the last time you got laid?”
Relationships: Adam du Mortain/Nathaniel “Nate” Sewell
Series: This, my dear, is love [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770787
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Just Do It

**Author's Note:**

> Do you know how devastating it is to find out you’re the only one writing for this ship in here? It’s depressing, that’s why I’ll have to do more.
> 
> This will be 2 chapters, so stay tuned! And there’s a possibility I’ll changed ratings once I post the second chapter, so that’s very 👀
> 
> Enjoy!

The whispering doesn’t stop.

As Adam takes a swing of his water bottle, he can hear his students talk among themselves in the small circle they stand in just a few ways away from him. They aren’t subtle, and he can ignore them most of the time, but it’s been slightly more than a month since he’s been with the Agency again and it’s beginning to get old.

The unit he’s currently training consists of forest nymphs. They’re young, and they move with an agility that even he doesn’t have, running light on their feet that any enemy wouldn’t even know what would hit them. He’s been pushing them into honing that advantage into something they can use in the future. The good thing about this unit is that they listen to him, their focus not wavering when he explains their abilities after hours of pouring into books.

He studies a lot about forest nymphs, and how they’re definitely different from water nymphs, but just as powerful.

But, the thing about his unit is that they have the tendency to gossip a lot. Usually, he’d be indifferent with whatever it is other people would talk about in his presence. 

Unfortunately, he’s forced to be involved now, because it seems their topic of interest is _him._

And they don't care that they know he’d hear them within ear range. Cheeky, these nymphs are. It’s just in their nature, he knows that. But, that doesn’t mean he’s willing to tolerate them whenever they simultaneously ogle him before snickering at whatever it is they find hilarious.

He sighs, putting down his bottle before standing up. He turns to face them, and his unit scrambles to stand at attention from where they’re in the middle of the mat. The training room is empty except for them and a werewolf lifting weights, whose grunts are faint from where she’s at the very corner of the room and ignoring them all.

“I want you to get into pairs,” Adam orders, hands on his hips. “Try bringing your partner down with the basic level of training I’ve shown you before this. I’ll be having an eye at your progress and correct your form if anything needs to be corrected.” He narrows his eyes. “And cheating is prohibited this time.”

“Coming from you, that’s rich.”

Adam whips his head up and sees the way Nate walks in with a book in hand, a smile gracing his lips.

His unit seems delighted at his presence, whispering with each other as the other vampire walks nearer towards them, but Nate doesn’t appear to notice this when he has eyes on Adam only, who tries not to be too self-conscious when he has a group of young supernaturals under his care.

“Don’t let his stern demeanour fool you all,” Nate informs them lightly as he stops beside Adam. “He cheats too. Just recently in fact.”

“I find it hard to believe Commanding Agent du Mortain cheats,” one of them quips, brushing away a strand of deep orange hair from her face. “He just doesn’t look like the one to do it.”

“Ah, that’s because you think he looks like this, he‘s not like the rest of us,” Nate grins, resting his weight on the back of his heels. “He definitely cheats to win. I should know.”

“How?” Another of his students asks, his yellow eyes curious when they fleet to Adam.

Adam turns to Nate, brows furrowing. “Enough.”

“The fact that I know this man for more than three hundred years,” Nate continues, ignoring him. “But only finding out _now_ , that he cheats with the worst kind of cheating anyone on the other end would go through, has been nothing but a shock to me.”

They’re all interested now, leaning forward subconsciously. Adam groans, already feeling his ears heating up as he covers his face with a hand.

“And that would be…?”

Nate chuckles. “Seduction.”

There’s a soft gasp, and it sets off a flurry of giggles from his unit that it takes Adam immense effort to not let his shoulders raise to his ears.

He presses his fingers into his eyes and then lets them go, snapping a glare at Nate, who doesn’t own an ounce of guilt for disrupting his class. “Don’t listen to him,” Adam growls through clenched teeth, watching how wicked Nate’s smile has become when he holds his gaze. “We have important things to do than to listen to made up stories.”

“They’re not made up stories if they’re true,” Nate says, his tone light enough, but there’s a look in his eye that makes Adam turn away, the weight of it digging in his chest.

He looks over his unit and they stand to attention. The excited chittering has died down, but the big smiles are still stretched wide on their faces as they look back at him. 

He hardens his look, and one by one, his unit clears their throats and covers their amusement with neutral expressions.

“I can already imagine what they’re going through,” Nate comments as he eyes the way the nymphs follow their Commander’s orders. Then, he glances at Adam. “It looks like my presence was needed, after all.”

“No, it’s not,” Adam gruffs out, pushing a stray of blonde hair away from his face. “Get into position,” he barks at them. “Remember what I said.”

His unit does as they’re told, going into pairs in the middle of the clearing. When Adam gives his signal with a wave of his hand, they begin their training.

“You’re a little hard on them,” Nate voices out from where they’re standing at the sides, not looking at each other as they watch the nymphs.

“If they don’t know their own potential, then they’re going to die out there,” Adam says bluntly, and this has Nate glancing at him, even if Adam refuses to meet his eyes as he clutches onto his waist. 

“I’m sure,” Nate agrees. “But, you’re punishing them when it should be me.”

Adam scoffs. “I’m not punishing them. This is essential. If they don’t know their teammates’ strengths and weaknesses, they wouldn’t be able to know when they should contribute where they should. It’s going to be a mess. Hence, practice.”

“Do you think they’ll learn something from us if we were fighting each other?”

Adam jerks his head to the side, and Nate is already looking at him then. “What was that, anyway?” He asks softly, brown eyes searching his face.

Adam tries not to swallow dryly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“They’re right, you know,” Nate says instead, tilting his head towards where his students are training against each other. “You don’t cheat. You _never_ cheat. Something about honour and dignity getting in the way of doing anything the rest of us wouldn’t think trice in doing.”

Adam can’t bring himself to look away then, not when the curiosity and hope Nate wears blatantly burns right through him. “But, _you’d_ think twice?” 

“Something’s always going to rebel against the thought of doing something we're not supposed to do,” Nate tells him. He takes a small breath then, as if bracing himself, and it makes panic spike inside Adam. “Adam—“

“I wanted to win,” Adam cut him off, turning away to prevent himself from looking directly at Nate. “That’s all there is to it. Nothing else.”

The sound of his students’ training fills in the space between them, dull compared to how the silence they shared thudded loudly against his eardrums. Adam almost regretted the snappish tone of his voice, but he can’t say how deeply that evening affected him, even if _he’s_ the one who started it first.

He took a bite bigger than he can chew and he’s facing the consequences. Adam thinks he deserves it, for being a clusterfuck of a being who let go of his control when he needed it most. It’s unfair to Nate, he knows, but he remembers the _thrill_ of it — he remembers how raw _want_ looks like if he allows himself the indulgence, if he offers himself back the way Nate has been trying to make him _see_.

Adam can’t. That evening sliced him opened and bared him naked — he simply _can’t_.

Nate sighs, defeated. “Of course.” He hesitates. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Adam doesn’t lift his head when Nate turns back around, his footsteps leaving the room before it walks down the hallway. Adam doesn’t need to strain his ears to hear him, or how the pages whisper under the slide of Nate’s fingers because that’s how he expresses his unsettled feelings; by fidgeting with his books. That makes Adam glare a hole onto the mat, because he’s the cause of that fidgeting. He’s the reason why Nate worries about him, about _them_ , because Adam refuses to express what he really means.

Adam doesn’t know what he wants for himself. All that’s come out of this is he’s _terrified_ of it, of the possibilities of what he can get if he just admits to himself that Nate means so much to him. And how, to some extent, he means something to Nate, too.

Adam releases a sharp breath through his teeth, roughly shoving back his hair as he steps onto the mat to correct some loose posture, pushing everything else to the back of his mind.

* * *

“Why are you two fighting again?”

Adam looks up from the files he has spread across the surface, meeting Mason’s indescribable look from where he’s perched at the edge of the table. Adam regards him for a moment. “Since when being in the library has brought interest to you?”

“Oh no, I’ll be the one asking questions,” Mason tuts, sliding into the chair opposite him.

“Is that so?” Adam asks dryly.

“Yeah, it is.” Mason perches his feet on the empty chair beside Adam, fingers interlaced on his stomach as he sinks into his own chair to make himself comfortable. As if this is going to be an interrogation. Adam tries not to grimace at the realisation. “Now, stop patronising me and answer the question.”

“We’re not fighting,” Adam says, and that makes Mason snort indignantly.

“Yeah, sure. The man’s moping around as if you just ripped his heart out and stomped it in front of him. You two are very much fighting with each other, or at least, said something out of line.” Mason arches his eyebrows. “Am I wrong?”

“Yes,” Adam says curtly, looking back down at the files of cases and trying to learn what the Agency made the units do when he hasn’t been around for more than ten years. But, he can’t seem to concentrate now, not with the weight of Mason’s gaze prickling down his neck.

“Your heart rate’s not doing much in the lying factor,” Mason states, and Adam locks his jaw, snapping his head up. “Clearly, you’re upset as he is in whatever's happening between you two.”

“All the more reason to realise it’s none of your business, you think?” Adam says archingly, leaning back and crossing his arms against his chest. 

“Maybe,” Mason smiles sharply. “But, okay, hear me out for a second, huh? I’m offering you a solution to this mess and I think it’s better than you almost destroying the dummy we have in the training room.”

“There isn’t even a ‘mess’ to begin with,” Adam retorts. 

“You’re gonna keep telling yourself that?” Mason challenges, now folding his arms against the surface of the table and leaning forward, as if he’s going to share a secret. “Gonna lie to yourself and make the rest of us suffer through your longing glances as if you’re teenagers again? Because honestly? I’m beginning to get sick of it.”

“Then don’t look,” Adam says, before wincing at what the words meant, and it seems Mason is quick to catch on when he grins wickedly at him.

“So, you admit you have something for him,” Mason leans away, and Adam thinks if he grinds his teeth anymore than he has, they’ll turn to dust under the force. “I know you do. And I know why you’re like this too. Ergo, my solution.”

Adam sighs, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. “What solution?”

“You need to get laid,” Mason says bluntly, causing Adam to tense, something warm heating up his cheeks. Mason, of course, notices how red flashes up his skin like the plague and pushes further. “You two need to sleep together. It’ll take the edge off, I promise.”

“I’m not using your one night stands as a solution,” Adam hisses out, gripping his forearms tightly. “Keep that to yourself.”

“You’d be surprised at what a little sex can do to you,” Mason hums. “When’s the last time you got laid?”

Adam opens his mouth to say that he _has_ gotten himself _laid_ , thank you very much. But, he’s unable to let the words out, the string of it sticking in his throat. Mason actually winces in sympathy. “That long, huh?”

“When you’re catching rogue supernaturals and find yourself constantly moving around, you don’t have time for sex,” Adam tries to defend himself, but Mason doesn’t seem convinced.

“We were going on missions and I managed to get some—“

“Yes, okay,” Adam cuts him off, causing Mason to smirk knowingly, nodding at his way to make him continue. Adam only glares at him, before answering in a low tone, “I can’t just sleep with him.”

“You can’t, or you’re just chicken shit to do it?” Mason asks easily, and Adam starts questioning himself as to why he has nosy friends prodding into his sex life. “Because if you think Nate wouldn’t lay a hand on that ass of yours, you’re definitely wrong. I’ve seen how he couldn’t stop staring at it.”

“Mason,” Adam hisses, embarrassment and pride rearing their heads together inside of him because listening to someone else telling him Nate wanted him _that_ way is horrifying. But, at the same time, Adam knows the little stunt he did that day isn’t as misplaced as he initially thinks.

Though, it makes him cruel from how he’s treating Nate now, from how he’s pulling himself away from him. He started that. Adam is the one who’s taken the step in crossing the line they’ve been tiptoeing all their lives, before he’s retracting himself just as quickly. He thinks he isn’t ready for that; he doesn’t know _when_ he’s ready for those sorts of things.

And from Nate’s reaction that morning, if Adam doesn’t do anything to acknowledge what they have, what they _want_ , he’s afraid that someday, he’s going to lose him.

Adam can’t bring himself to let that happen. 

“You’re thinking too hard again,” Mason points out, causing Adam to shoot him a withering look. “For once, use your dick and not your brain. God knows you need it now.”

“I don’t.”

“You need to unwind yourself.”

“I do it just fine by training and working.”

“That’s the thing,” Apparently, dealing with a stubborn man like Adam is beginning to stress Mason out, because he takes out a cigarette from his silver compartment and puts it between his lips. He doesn’t light it up, though. “You’re exerting yourself. This is about letting yourself go. Training is fine, I guess, but sex is better. You get to _enjoy_ it.”

“I’m not,” Adam punctuates clearly. “Sleeping with him.”

Mason stares at him for a moment, before he takes out his matches next. “Your call, Mighty Leader. But, don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

Then, he stands up with a hand cupping over his cigarette, lighting it up in the library that pulls some shrewd looks from nearby people. Mason arches his brows as a goodbye, and walks out with a trail of smoke behind him.

Adam is left sitting where he is, staring at the space Mason has gone as his words roll around his head. But, despite how the years have passed, how they’ve danced around each other — despite what signals Nate himself gives out sometimes, all Adam can come up with is one thing.

Nate can’t possibly want to sleep with him.

Before Adam can think about it more, his pager chirps in his pocket. He takes it out and glances at the screen, only to see Chana calling for him into her office. With a sweep of his files, he storms out of the library.

* * *

When Adam nears the medical room, Nate is already waiting on the other side of the glass window, no doubt to have a look.

Adam slows down his steps until he finds himself standing beside him, turning to look inside the room.

Agent Chana informs him that a vampire fell out of the Echo World, just outside the border of the Agency. The vampire has been far too confused and afraid to run away from the agents that come out of the building, trying to appear non-threatening as they offer him shelter in one of the rooms.

Looking at him now, this vampire is young, clothes scorched and forearms healing from what scars he manages to snag before falling into this side of the world. The agent assigned to help him is trying to coax him into talking, from how the hum of the old language whispers to Adam through the barrier between them. But, the vampire keeps staring at his hands, and it seems there’s not much success in getting him to reveal what’s happened to him.

“Anything?” Adam asks.

“We managed a name,” Nate replies, his hands shoved inside his pants pockets. “Felix. But, he’s not willing to reveal anything else.”

“He didn’t try to fight back?”

“No. Too stunned, the medics said. They said it’ll wear off soon, but there’s no hoping he’ll trust us immediately after that.”

“None of them trust us as much as I’m aware.” Adam says dryly.

Nate offers a small smile. “Anyone can be threatened when a group of people is suddenly prodding answers from you. The very least, we have someone to convince him we’re not as bad as he might think for now.”

Adam watches how the vampire lifts his head to look at the agent before giving a nod. “Why aren’t you doing it?”

“I will, when the need arises,” Nate agrees. “Agent Chana wants him to join the Agency. If he agrees, we’ll start teaching him some languages. And then, some training. Once he’s ready, he’ll be joining us on some missions to get with the feel of working with us.”

Adam turns to him, frowning. “He’s joining our unit?”

Nate rubs a thumb over his mouth, avoiding his eyes. “We’re one person short. Chana wants us to do field work again as soon as we can. She’s getting restless.”

“ _She’s_ getting restless,” Adam points out. “And it’s not like we don’t have other vampires who can’t join us.”

“They have their own units, and some have other work they’re more suitable in than field work. Besides,” Nate mimics his posture, facing Adam bodily instead of the medical room. “It could be good for us to have a new team member. It’ll be good to Felix to have someone to trust him after he just left his own home. And I know both you and Mason enough that you’d actually take care of each other, like I’m planning to make him realise that we’re all friends here.”

Adam looks back at him helplessly. “We haven’t even met him and you’re already planning to take him in.” 

It makes Nate chuckle at that. “I remember how it was like to be somewhere different. Or to be thrown into something you weren’t prepared for. I’m trying to make his life a little less difficult.”

Adam remembers the first time he sees Nate; he remembers the sea, the storm that comes with it. But most of all, he remembers how terrified Nate is when he first sees him, and how he’s still thinking about it even if it’s been years after the Agency helps him. Maybe, Nate thinks this is how he gives back; by helping other people who are struggling to walk on unfamiliar ground on their own.

Adam lets out a quiet breath as he looks back into the medical room. “If that’s the case, I’m going to need someone to take over the unit I’m currently training now. He,” he nodded at the vampire. “Would need my full attention.”

Nate lets out a concerning sound. “Don’t be too harsh on him.”

“If Chana wants us to go back to doing field work faster, then I’d have to drill everything I know into him as much as I can in a short period of time.” Adam huffs out a breath. “Hopefully, he’s a fast learner.”

“Yes, but, don’t be too harsh on him,” Nate repeats himself. “I don’t want him running away just when I thought he’ll trust us enough to stay.”

“You can’t honestly doubt me now?” Adam asks, amusement showing in his voice as he glances at Nate.

“In doing your job? No. But in saying the wrong thing at the wrong time?” Nate smirks at him then. “I know for a fact that happened a few times.”

Adam immediately catches what he means and folds his arms against his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“If prompted, I’m sure Unit Alpha does.” Nate is grinning this time. 

“It’s not my fault their mission had something to do with mud,” Adam claims, raising an eyebrow. “And that I smelled wet soil being left under the sun from the main entrance and they managed to hear me all the same.”

“You weren’t _that_ far away,” Nate laughs quietly. “And saying, ‘something smells like wet mut’ is a very cruel thing to do.”

“I was right. I just didn’t know they were here in the first place.”

“Now, _that’s_ a lie.”

“I can’t help it that I didn’t.”

Adam stops, and turns towards the medical room that he’s able to see the vampire —Felix, he reminds himself— staring at both of them with something wide and curious. The bright golden look of his eyes flicker between both of them, trying to make heads and tells of what they’re talking about even if he doesn’t understand the language.

“He looks smart,” Adam murmurs, the playful air dissipating when the reminder of why they’re standing there comes back. “Maybe he’ll be alright with us.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Nate says, smiling assuringly at Felix. It makes him smile back with some reluctance. “We’ll be alright.”

Adam hums noncommittally. “We will.”


End file.
